HSB Turning Torso is a skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden, located on the Swedish side of the Öresund strait. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and officially opened on 27 August 2005. The tower reaches a height of 190 metres (623 feet) with 54 stories. Upon completion, it was the tallest building in Scandinavia, the tallest residential building in the EU and the second tallest residential building in Europe, after the 264-metre-high Triumph-Palace in Moscow.

The design is based on a sculpture by Santiago Calatrava called Twisting Torso. It uses nine segments of five-story pentagons that twist as it rises; the topmost segment is twisted ninety degrees clockwise with respect to the ground floor. Each floor consists of an irregular pentagonal shape rotating around the vertical core, which is supported by an exterior steel framework. The two bottom segments are intended as office space. Segments three to nine house 149 luxury apartments.

The Twisting Torso sculpture is a white marble piece based on the form of a twisting human being. Johnny Örbäck, former CEO of the Turning Torso contractor and Board Chairman of the Malmö branch of the co-operative housing association HSB, saw the sculpture in 1999 and contacted Calatrava to ask him to design a building using the same concept. Construction started in the summer of 2001.

One reason for the building of Turning Torso was to re-establish a recognizable skyline for Malmö since the removal of the Kockums Crane in 2002, which was located less than a kilometre from Turning Torso. The local politicians deemed it important for the inhabitants to have a symbol for Malmö — Kockumskranen, which was a large crane that had been used for shipbuilding and somewhat symbolised the city's blue collar roots.

Turning Torso won the 2005 Emporis Skyscraper Award beating the Q1 Tower in Gold Coast City in Queensland, Australia and Montevideo Tower in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The structure also won the 2005 MIPIM award in Cannes, France for Best International Residential Building, beating the 1 West India Quay in London, UK, and Espirito Santo Plaza in Miami, USA.

The construction of Turning Torso was featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel's series Extreme Engineering. A documentary about the building, The Socialist, The Architect and The Twisted Tower, was also produced.

I counted at least seven cranes in the area.
It seems to be transforming fast.

That pic is two years old, so it looks a lot different now! Although, there are still about 20-25 cranes in the West Harbour peninsula at the moment (or it was before summer at least-- haven't counted since).

I was going to the congression center in the harbour the other day, and it's been a while I've been up close Turning Torso, but I certainly didn't expect this sight! I'm quite sad I only had my cell camera...would have made a great shot even with a digital camera.